Facelift Headlights.... **** :(

as above my audi a4 FL (1999) avant headlamps are shockingly dim.... even with a HID Conversion...... would aftermarket h/lamps (with sexy DRL's in them) be better, or would it have the same issues due to the reflectors... and is there anything i can do in the meantime....
any help appriceated.
Wayne

What HID kit are you running? I have a A4 1999 facelift sport quattro with a HID conversion kit - 6000k ice white, its the ice white bit that makes them so bright, I came to the conclusion that the bluer they are and the higher the number the darker they are - mid range number is the best I find, I had mine realigned with a beam setter after fitting and they are good on a dark country road, when stopped infront of a wall at a 10 meter distance I have the perfect ''''''''''''\____ beam lines from both lights with a slight blue tinge, long distance is good too, reflects road signs from long distance before the edge of the dipped beam becomes closer to the sign, I also run osram nightbreaker plus in the full beams. The first set of HID I obtained from someone on ebay were terrible and dark, so sent them back for a refund, this set is much different and brighter.

Lights in my A4 not up to much - however not helped by daily drive though Bilsdale - the one upgrade I would love would be headlamp washers and Volvo style wipers!

Sliver 2000 1.9 Tdi AJM Se Auto Saloon cooking sherry but with CD Changer and now Bluetooth audio connection and boot based Tartan blanket. Now runs at 90 degrees like a good 'un. Quality Cambelt kit fitted - next on list is control arm set.
Silver 2000 2.5 V6 Tdi Auto Quattro Saloon drowned on 7th August 2012 RIP - but she lives on in the many,many donor parts she gave so that others may live...

i too have a set of H7 6000k HID's in mine, again like you i have a lovely line and "kick" associated with the headlights, also had the headlamps adjusted but still the output is shocking, altho a few friends comment on how bright they are until they come for a drive with me, then they say how bad they are.

All I can say is perhaps its the quality of the set you purchased - I think you do pay for what you get, if you pay around £20 to £30 I expect them to be quite poor in output like the first set I purchased, so I went more up market and payed around £80 and they are far better quality with a higher brighter output, the pictures they use on ebay are not necessarily what you will see when you put them in your own headlights.

Most of these kits use cheaper salts which produce light in the 6000k> range, which your eye is much less sensitive to due to the increased amount of blue wavelengths. The genuine lamps are more expensive due to the salts required to produce decent quality light. The Halogen projectors also arent upto the job of properly spreading an HID lamps beam in the correct way and the focal point will be different too.

If you want good performing HID's you need good 4300k lamps (Osram or Philips, though trying to find genuine Philips ones these days is like hens teeth) and projector assemblies that are designed appropriately for the HID lamps. The missus A4 has a fake Philips lamp in one of its headlamps and the output from it is rubbish compared with the genuine one on the other side.

I've bought a set of FX-R BiXenon projectors to retrofit to a spare set of halogen headlamps for my car, but i've just not got round to it yet.

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